"You stay and let me go," answered the boy promptly. "I gave my word to some of the fellows that I would enlist within twenty-four hours after I reached home, if I could get to a recruiting office, and they promised to do the same."
"Very well," said Mr. Gray, "I shall not say one word to turn you from your purpose, and neither will your mother,"
Mrs. Gray started when she heard these words. She had talked very bravely about "giving her boy his sword and shield and sending him forth to battle," and she had thought she could do it without a tremor; but now that the matter was brought right home to her, she found, as many another mother did, that it was going to be the hardest task she had ever set for herself. Rodney was safe at school, hundreds of miles away from her when she uttered those patriotic words; now he was within hearing of her voice, and all she had to do was to tell him to mount his horse and go. She could not do it; but her husband, who believed that the matter might as well be settled one time as another, continued—
"There is an independent company of cavalry camped about a mile the other side of Mooreville, and I know they would be glad to take you in. The company is made up of the very best men in the county, many of whom are your personal friends, and every member has to be balloted for."
"They are nearly all wealthy, and some of them are going to take their body servants to the front with them," added Mrs. Gray, trying to look cheerful although her eyes were filled with tears. "Your father and I spent an afternoon in their camp, and you don't know how nicely they are situated—all the luxuries the country affords on their tables, and then they are so full of martial ardor!"
"Yes," assented Mr. Gray. "We found it a regulation holiday camp—nothing to do and plenty of darkies to do it. They were having no end of fun, lying around in the shade abusing the Yankees. But wait until they meet those same Yankees in battle, and their blacks run away from them, and then they have to do their own cooking and forage for their bacon and hard-tack, and then they will know what soldiering means."
"Now, father," protested Mrs. Gray. "Why do you talk so when Rodney is on the eve of enlisting? You surely do not wish to discourage him?"
"By no means. I only want to make him see, before he swears away his liberty for the next twelve months, that he is not going on a Fourth of July picnic. If he knows what is before him, he will not be surprised or disheartened when the hard times come."
"I know a little something about soldiering, and you need have no fears that anything father can say will discourage me," Rodney said to his mother. "I have passed my word, and consider myself as good as enlisted already. Who commands that company of cavalry?"
"Bob Hubbard is the one who is getting it up, but there isn't any real commander yet. The boys do just about as they please, and will keep on doing so until the officers are elected, which will be when they have eighty men enrolled. Bob says that if they elect him captain, and I reckon he stands as good a chance as anybody, the boys will have to come down to Limerick and quit leaving camp and staying in town over night whenever the notion takes them."